Interviewing George Thorogood: Rocker, coming to Allentown, says touring is what bluesmen do

Rocker George Thorogood talks about his 40-year career in a telephone interview with Morning Call music reporter John J. Moser. Thorogood will perform tonight, March 17, at Miller Symphony Hall in Allentown.

Rocker George Thorogood talks about his 40-year career in a telephone interview with Morning Call music reporter John J. Moser. Thorogood will perform tonight, March 17, at Miller Symphony Hall in Allentown.

See what blues-rocker George Thorogood says about coming back to the Lehigh Valley

During a career that last year marked 40 years of recording, blues-rocker George Thorogood and his band The Destroyers has played a good number of shows in the Lehigh Valley.

The band played Castle Garden in South Whitehall Township in 1984, Bilera Hall at DeSales University (then Allentown College) in Center Valley in 1986, Lehigh University’s Stabler Arena in 1988 and Allentown Fair in 1991.

It played two shows at the defunct Zodiac Club in Allentown in 1993, then shows at Musikfest in Bethlehem in 2005 and 2013, and Sands Bethlehem Event Center in 2012.

On March 17, Thorogood and The Destroyers will be back, playing a St. Patrick’s Day show at Allentown’s Miller Symphony Hall.

That’s just what bluesmen do, Thorogood says in a phone interview.

Thorogood, 65, says he doesn’t call himself a bluesman — he’s simply “a performer,” he says — but the shoe certainly fits. Thorogood is the epitome of the meat-and-potatoes blues-rocker.

He has had an occasional popular song and eight gold and platinum albums. Classic rock radio made popular his covers of songs such as Bo Diddley’s “Who Do You Love?,” John Lee Hooker’s “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer” and Hank Williams’ “Move It On Over” — none of which, incredibly, ever charted.

In a recent telephone call – the location from which Thorogood said that “because of the government, I can’t give you the whereabouts” – Thorogood talked about his career and upcoming projects.

[Laughs] The reason we’re talking is that you’re coming to our Miller Symphony Hall in Allentown on St. Patty’s Day. So there’ll be a lot of drinking there, I think.

[Laughs] “Isn’t there anyway when we play? [Laughs]

[Laughs]

“That’s news, is it?”

[Laughs] There you go. All right, so let me jump into this. You’re still on the tour that’s marking 40 years in the business. How’s that going for you?

“I can’t complain. We played a lot of new venues, a couple that we’ve done before. Attendance has been high. Response has been excellent, and the energy in the band has been good. So I can’t complain.”

What’s it like for you to realize that you’ve been doing this, at least as a recording artist, for more than 40 years now. Put that in context – what does it mean to you? How does it feel?

“Well, it’s something you don’t really put in context until you probably stop doing it altogether. Cause I’m so busy on a daily basis doing what I have to do. And even when I’m not on the road working, John, you know, I’m training on the treadmill and watching my diet; trying to keep my guitar chops together. So you really don’t have time to concentrate on that thing when you’re still active.

“The Destroyers – I don’t know if you want to call it a career or whatever you want to call it – hasn’t run its course yet, so I really haven’t had time to reflect on that.”

You know, the interesting thing to me is – because you are, at heart and in most ways, a blues man – I mean, blues musicians play forever.

“They have to – they don’t make any money.”

[Laughs]

[Laughs] “That’s the key – that’s the answer to that question.”

And that’s what keeps their music coming – they write more stuff about not making money.”

“Well, they make the same money, but the cost of living keeps going up. So that’s why the blues people play right ‘till they put them in the grave. Because they still need the dough – or they have a passion for it. You can make a living playing blues, yes, but you’re not in the financial level of someone such as Faith Hill or bands such as Paul McCartney or The Rolling Stones – people like that. Let’s face it.

“So yeah, they’re much more active.”

Is that how you would describe yourself? As a blues man?

“No. A performer.”

Since the anniversary’s going to be a theme in my story, talk about your first album, “Better Than the Rest.” What do you remember about putting that album together?

“I didn’t. I have nothing to do with it.”

How is that? How did you have nothing to do with it?

“It was a demo tape that I didn’t own. And the man who owned the masters sold it to MCA and once our first record got out and we started to get notoriety, he went and found it and dusted it off and sold it for a high price and they bootlegged it.”

Wow, it that right? I had no idea. I didn’t know that story.

“Yeah, yeah. It’s not a good one.”

OK – I’ll get away from it, then.

“Please. Thank you [Laughs].”

In your career, eight gold albums, two platinum albums – millions of records sold. Can you look back on thing that were highlights? What stands out as the most interesting or important things you did in your career?

“Well, I try not to look back, John. I don’t like looking over my shoulder, looking the rear-view mirror. If you look into the rear-view mirror too many times, then you crash into what’s in front of you. So I try not to do that.

“But since you’re a nice guy and you come from Allentown … eh, I’d say the turning point – a turning point, or the highest -- was when ‘[One] Bourbon, [One] Scotch, [One] Beer’ got played on the radio. That made us a national act. Getting that to happen to begin with, that’s what broke us. … ‘Broke’ meaning it exposed us to the world of rock music. It was put on FM radio, which I never expected and I never even pursued it. It just happened. But that was when things turned around completely for us.

“And suddenly we’re not a bar band anymore; suddenly were not playing little bars. We’re now being exposed and recognized in the rock world. We were taken serious.”

[The song] “Bad to the Bone” has to be a highlight.

“It wasn’t. Making the video was a lot of fun, but the song itself didn’t break big till they created rock classic radio. It kind of hung around for about eight years there. We played it in the show and people kind of liked it, but it was when rock classic radio picked it up that it found its market, found its audience. “

Wow, again – I guess because I grew up in the MTV generation, and I just saw that video and it so sticks in my mind …

“Well even then, when it came out on MTV it didn’t … the video was bigger than the song. People liked the video, and they thought the song was OK. That was all right with us – we had another song to put in the show. And then all of a sudden, when rock classic started playing it, man, that’s when it took off. That was eight years later. That was a little while later.”

Is that right? Eight years? Wow. I read in preparing for this interview, I read that you’ve done something like 8,000 live shows. You have any recollection of special ones? I mean, Live Aid must still out, yes?

“Eight thousand?”

That’s what I read.

“I didn’t know that.”

Yeah.

“Well, the only ones that really, really stick out are the bad ones [Laughs]. And I’d rather not talk about them.” [Laughs]

[Laughs] All right, let me ask you this: Our area has seen you several times. You played our Musikfest festival two years ago and that was the third time you played it. And actually I came to your trailer and interviewed you in your trailer for that show. And you played our Sands Casino in 2012. And I looked back in our archives, and this show coming up – March 17 – will be 27 years ago to the day that you played a show at Stabler Arena in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. So you played our area several times.

You have any recollection of the Allentown-Bethlehem area at all?

“It must be going good – you keep asking us back.”

Yeah [Laughs]

“I do remember one time playing in Allentown the first time we played. And we played a place that at one had been a roller rink, maybe. And they closed it down and we played in it, and it was during the cold months of the year. That was pretty unusual.”

That was a place called Castle Garden.

“I can remember that one. That one sticks out.”

Wow. Yeah, that’s been gone for years.

“It was probably the, maybe the early ‘80s.”

Yup, yup. That would have been right. Recorded music – the last thing you put out was “2120 South Michigan Avenue.” Do you have any plans to record again? Anything in the works?

“We have a record coming out on [the label] Rounder that was a re-release of our very first record. We originally recorded it without a bass player and they want to release it as it was, the first time, without a bass on it. And we’re kicking around the idea of doing a … me playing a solo album alone, pretty much all acoustic.”

Wow. Wow, who brought that up, or how did that come up?

“It came from them. From Rounder.”

Have you ever done anything like that?

“No.”

[Laughs] I was going to say, I’ve never heard about George Thorogood solo …

“Well that’s how I started. I started as a solo act on acoustic guitar. Everybody did.”

Yeah, everybody does.

“Bruce Springsteen’s first album was a solo album of him playing acoustic, like Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan’s first album was all acoustic, of him playing alone. And John Hammond’s; numerous other people before they go electric. I just never got around to doing that. I was supposed to do that and it just never happened. I couldn’t get a label interested in me when I was playing alone. And as years go by, Rounder’s heard me bang around an acoustic guitar, and they’d say, ‘Why don’t you make a record like that?’ I said, ‘I did! I was ready in 1972 and 73.’ [Laughs] But you guys weren’t interested in me then or didn’t know I existed, or whatever.”

Yeah, but it’s an intriguing idea. I can’t wait to hear it. Hey, I read on your website that you started a clothing brand last month? How the heck did that come about?